This is your chance to reflect on what you will take away from Chapter 8: I Never Finish Anything and to learn from or contribute to other book club members’ take-aways. You can also pose questions here about the chapter or what you are discovering about yourself.

The exercises we completed in Chapter 8: I Never Finish Anything included

1. Name That Feeling (the feeling of a project you’re no longer interested in)
2. Name That Other Feeling (the feeling of being completely captivated)

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You’ve already described The Bad Feeling. Now it’s time to do what Jess, Lucia, Mark, and Dianne did: describe the good one. Open your Daybook and think about how you feel when you’re in full-speed-ahead Scanner mode, when you’re completely captivated by something and want to do it more than anything else in the world.

Then pick up your pen and describe the sensation you’re having in the Daybook, and write slowly and thoughtfully so you’ll never forget it. It’s time to claim the feeling that draws you like a powerful magnet to what is new and unknown, because it’s the most joyous part of you, and it’s the other source of you being a Scanner. You see, not everyone feels as bad as you do when you’re stuck with a project that doesn’t interest you. And not everyone becomes as fascinated and delighted by something new and interesting.

That’s what makes you different. Your mind loves new ideas for its own reasons.

Maybe coming up with ideas is just the way your brain dances. Instead of thinking, “This could be a great opportunity for success!” why not enlarge the meaning of “opportunity” to include The Good Feeling? As in: “This could be a great opportunity for my brain to boogie?”

If your brain cells are having a good time, they must be hearing their own kind of music. Let them dance.

Which leads me to a radical bit of advice

I’m convinced you’re not supposed to finish 99% of the projects you start under the influence of The Good Feeling. But you should start them anyway.

Open your Daybook and take some time to remember this feeling and describe it so you never forget it. In a new comment on this page, tell us about it, then read the rest of the comments and reply if you care to continue the conversation with your fellow brain boogie dancers.

Please be sure to subscribe to future comments on this exercise or to check back here on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning for new ones.

Use the Next link (up above the title) to continue on to What I Learned from Chapter 8 after you are done adding your comments.

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Go somewhere quiet for about 20 minutes. Pull out your Daybook and pick up a pen. Now think back to the times you tried to stick with a project after you had lost interest in it. Pretend you’re in that situation again, and recreate the experience of having to focus your attention on the task. How does that make you feel? Does the feeling get more intense the longer you continue this fantasy? What is that feeling about?

Describe it the best you can. Be sure to take your time. This will not be fun, but if you do a thorough job you won’t ever have to do it again. Continue writing until you’ve described everything you can about what you were feeling.

When you’re done, read what other Scanners have said:

Rosa: I felt like I was being locked away from everything that would make me happy. I wanted to struggle to get free.

Howard: I knew if I stayed at what I was doing, my life would be drab and boring.

Renee: It was like going down a tunnel and thinking I’d never see the sun again. That was such a bad feeling.

If you wrote something similar, you’ve named that feeling. For the sake of easy identification, let’s call it The Bad Feeling. Confronting it is very powerful stuff because that feeling drives you away from every project once you’ve lost interest. It’s what stops you from following through even when you want to. The Bad Feeling is the first half of the mystery behind what makes you a Scanner, and it’s important that next time you see it, you’ll know what it is.

The Bad Feeling is different from Resistance. When you hit Resistance, you really want to continue the project but you want to skip the next step in it, because it’s painful. Give yourself 20 minutes to write in your Daybook about how it feels when you’re done with a project before other people think the project is done. In a new comment on this page, tell us if you’re familiar with the Bad Feeling and share what it feels like for you. After you share your experience, read the rest of the comments and reply to a few, because we all need to know our feelings, good or bad, are valid and not as unusual as we thought.

Please be sure to subscribe to future comments on this exercise or to check back here on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning for new ones.

Use the Next link (up above the title) to continue on to Exercise 2: Name That Other Feeling after you are done adding your comments.

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